What Hiring Employees Will Look Like After The Pandemic

The year ahead looks a lot more promising than the last one. Some small businesses were fortunate enough to grow as they pivoted to new business models. Hiring employees ground to a halt during the pandemic. No one knew what would come next, never mind try and bring on new people. As is in most downtimes, full-time positions gave way to project-based temporary help to keep things moving. But the sun looks like it will breach the horizon in 2021. Are the rainclouds of the pandemic gone with all the promise of vaccines for all by June? 

It’s time to brush off that old vision board for 2020 and see how it still can apply to 2021. You learned a lot this year. You grew as a small business owner and as a person. You’ll never be that person again. How much of the old plans are relevant now? If you look at your old vision for 2020, the reasons you planned to hire back then have likely changed. You see your small business from a whole new perspective. What do you need to do about hiring new employees? Before you put your ad on any one of the major hiring sites, let’s take a look at what will change when hiring employees after a pandemic. 

The Process Of Hiring Employees Is Going To Change 

Getting your office back in the office, if you plan to, will take some time. It’s not just turning the lights back on and having everyone return to their desks. Your employees have been away from their colleagues for some time. Getting them back into the workplace culture in-person will not happen overnight. Some employees will still be apprehensive about coming into work. Others are just out of practice with in-person interpersonal skills. You’ll need to work with these issues before you start hiring employees to go into your office. Get the workplace culture humming again before you start introducing new people into the mix. It will make everything go much smoother and will mitigate quick employee turnover. 

The old hiring process you had before is going to need some tweaking. The way you went about vetting candidates is not going to work the same way. You have realized by now that a lot of things don’t need to be done in person anymore. There is no reason to bring in a candidate early on in the process. Phone calls and zoom interviews are more than enough to get the job done. 

You will have to reevaluate how necessary it is for every employee to come into the office. Many small business leaders realize that remote workers do just fine. Hiring employees this year may look like looking for talent outside of your local area to find the best candidates. There is no reason not to hire a better candidate outside of your area if they are the better person for the job. If your employees can work anywhere, then you can look out of state as an avenue for hiring employees.

What Candidates Are Looking For Will Be Different Now 

Your business has changed this year, and so have the candidates you want to hire. Having to keep shuffling the deck to come out on top is something your top candidates have been doing, too. It’s not easy to stay ahead of things in the middle of a global crisis. Candidates who have a lot to offer are going to ask for more from their employers as well.

You will hear a lot about being able to work from home part-time or full-time. You will also hear about flexible hours. Has the 9 to 5 schedule gone the way of the buggy whip? Time will tell. But employees who have been working from home are used to working around their home schedule. You’ve probably noticed that they seem happier and get more done that way as well. It’s time to think about what can work for your employees’ schedule just as much as yours. 

Many employees have rethought their employee benefits with the threat of a deadly virus lurking around. The cut-rate benefits most small businesses offered before with high deductibles and scant benefits doesn’t work anymore. Employees need assurance that their health plan has their back if anything goes seriously wrong. Do your small business benefits do that? What will you offer top talent for benefits? If your benefits are lacking, your job post will stay open a lot longer than you want. 

A PEO Will Help With All Your New HR Needs Post-Pandemic

How will you keep up with all the new HR demands that 2021 will bring? Remote talent, flexible hours, and better benefits...Oh My! Small business owners have enough on their plates to tackle and manage all of the changes coming with hiring employees going forward. A PEO is the best solution to meet the demands of changing HR needs and still be able to grow your small business. If you’d like to find out more about what PEOs can do to help your small business HR needs, contact us today for a free evaluation to see if a PEO is right for you.